FORUM: SDG&E needs to take hit itself

San Diego Gas & Electric wants ratepayers to be forced to pay for costs incurred by SDG&E for the 2007 fire. SDG&E expects their customers to be responsible and holds them accountable for their bills. However, when SDG&E is facing the possibility of having to pay for its own mistakes there is an abdication of responsibility on its part.

It should be noted that even though the other two major California utility companies have withdrawn their applications for increased fees, SDG&E remains adamant about squeezing more money out of the residents of this area.

SDG&E considers it perfectly reasonable for the public to pay the uninsured portion of the cost. This would amount to millions of dollars ($500 million was one figure which came out in the recent hearings by the state Public Utilities Commission), to be paid by the ratepayers over a three- or four-year period.

We don't share SDG&E's profits, but we are expected to share their costs. This is just another bailout for another corporation. How's that for free enterprise? Taxpayers (I assume all ratepayers are taxpayers) again expected to put up the money for the mistakes of a corporation. There are many civil suits still pending against SDG&E, but that doesn't deter them, they rigidly push on looking for a bailout. This is just another chapter in the story of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

Now while those whose houses were destroyed are trying to put their lives back together, SDG&E wants to hit them with a rate increase. SDG&E cries they have suffered enough by paying out whatever their insurance covered. They believe that they should not be held responsible and want to pass on this expense to the residents. However, they do somehow manage to hand out large bonuses to their senior executives. Sound familiar?

At the recent PUC hearing two county supervisors, Diane Jacob and Pam Slater-Price, both spoke against SDG&E and this rate increase. Jacob said that we were burned once and now SDG&E is trying to burn us again.

Slater-Price said that if the typical business has to absorb their losses, why not SDG&E? If taxpayers are forced to pay for SDG&E's mistakes, it will set a precedent so that we will pay similar bills in the future.

It is time to stop these bailouts and ask SDG&E to pay for their mistakes like other grown-ups do.

The hundreds of people who showed up for the PUC hearing April 7 took the time out of their lives to express their opinions and I expect that the PUC officials, who, presumably represent the people, will decide against SDG&E. Most of us at that hearing made it clear that we were against the proposed rate increase. SDG&E had few defenders at that meeting.

So while the rest of us see the fire as a catastrophe SDG&E seems to see it as a new business opportunity. How's that for a "corporate citizen"?

I urge everyone to write to the Public Utilities Commission before they make a decision on this matter. The email address is: public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov.